GCS - 135 West 50th St

How does GCS - 135 West 50th St compare with other office buildings in New York City?

The latest disclosures cover 3,384 office buildings in New York City, out of 48,310 buildings citywide. GCS - 135 West 50th St's ENERGY STAR score of 86 compares with an average of 72 across the 2,519 that report a score; it scores higher than 65% of them and lower than 33%. Its site EUI of 44.6 kBtu/ft² is about 31% below the average of 64.5 kBtu/ft² — it uses less energy per square foot than the typical building in that group. Its emissions intensity of 3.4 kgCO₂e/ft² is about 41% below the group average of 5.8 kgCO₂e/ft².

At 771,472 sq ft, it is about 276% above the average floor area of 205,440 sq ft for those buildings. It was built in 1962, 22 years later than the group's average year built (1940). Across all 24 jurisdictions BuildingCensus covers, the 15,264 office buildings average an ENERGY STAR score of 73 and a site EUI of 59.3 kBtu/ft².

What does an ENERGY STAR score of 86 mean?

ENERGY STAR scores run from 1 to 100 and are computed by the EPA's Portfolio Manager as a percentile against similar buildings nationwide, adjusted for climate, size and use: a score of 86 means the building performs better than about 86% of its national peers. BuildingCensus bands the score into report-card grades; 86 falls in band A — high performer (85–100). Scores of 75 or higher meet the threshold for ENERGY STAR certification; certification itself is a separate, verified application that the disclosure does not record. In New York City, 43% of scored buildings are at 75 or above.

Site energy-use intensity (EUI) is the energy a building uses on site in a year divided by its floor area, in thousand Btu per square foot — lower is more efficient. GCS - 135 West 50th St's 44.6 kBtu/ft² across 771,472 sq ft works out to about 34.4 billion Btu (10,084 MWh-equivalent) in 2022. Its source EUI of 92.2 kBtu/ft² also counts the energy lost generating and delivering that power, which is why it is higher. The disclosure also reports 5,539,362 kWh of electricity and 7,551 thousand gallons of water for the year.

Which law requires GCS - 135 West 50th St to report its energy use?

GCS - 135 West 50th St reports under Local Law 84 (LL84), the legal basis of New York City's Energy and Water Data Disclosure program, which publishes each covered building's annual benchmarking results. The record shown here is the report-year 2022 disclosure (source record nyc:2633397:2022). Under Local Law 97, buildings over 25,000 sq ft face carbon caps with fines of $268 per metric ton of CO₂e over the limit, phasing in from 2024.